Love, Stargirl
by Blairdiggory
Summary: An alternate ending to Stargirl that I wrote for class.


"What do you think you're_ doing_?!"  
It was the night of the Octillo Ball. The majority of the student body was crowded onto the tennis courts of Mica Country Club, all in flowing gowns or tuxedoes (all of which were powder blue, as the result of a tacit agreement among the boys to copy Wayne Parr's selection). I had decided not to attend. I stood a couple of feet away from the gates that separated the outside world from the courts and watched as everyone had arrived. After the others had shown up, Stargirl had finally come. And Hillari, always the voice to speak out, was livid.  
"Well?" Hillari once again threw her demand at Stargirl.  
Stargirl calmly stopped her movement on the dance floor and turned to face Hillari. She smiled. "I'm dancing!"  
"Yeah, like you're at a 5-year-old's birthday party." Hillari sneered. "This is a _ball_, if you haven't noticed."  
"Oh, I noticed!" grinned Stargirl. "That's why I wore this dress." She gave the buttercup yellow skirt of it a twirl. "I think it's lovely, don't you?"  
A crowd was beginning to form around the two girls. They glanced from Hillari to Stargirl, anxious for a fight. They wanted Stargirl put back in her place. They giggled and whispered, waiting for Hillari to make her next move.  
Hillari looked Stargirl right in her eyes. "Do you think this is a joke?"  
Stargirl's big eyes widened in confusion. "Why would I think that?"  
"Well, for one, your _dress_," Hillari glanced at it with disdain, "looks more like a dress-up toy than an outfit."  
Stargirl looked down at it and frowned.  
"And your _dancing_ is embarrassing. This event is for couples. You can't just expect to show up without a date and dance however you want," Hillari continued.  
"Really? You can't?" Stargirl asked curiously.  
"Of _course_ not."  
"Well, that's ok! I can pretend I have a date!" Stargirl put her hands up in position and, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, began to tango with her invisible partner.  
"NO!" Hillari screamed. "This isn't a joke! This is the most important event of the entire school year, and you can't even take it seriously! You are such a _fraud_!"  
Stargirl stumbled and stopped dancing. "What?" she asked turning to Hillari. Her eyes got even bigger, if it were possible.  
Someone in the crowd laughed out loud. Another shouted, "Yeah, Hillari, give it to her!" The rest sniggered. Hillari, who was now empowered by the crowd, launched forward.  
"You're a liar," Hillari sneered. "You say you care about _us_ and help _everyone_ when they need it. You do it all for _us_. If you can't be serious for the one thing we care about most, then you don't care about _us_ at all."  
The crowd whooped and hollered in agreement. The lights surrounding the tennis courts all seemed to center a spotlight on Stargirl. Her eyes began to sparkle as the light touched the tears that were beginning to form.  
"You're a fake. You're a hypocrite," Hillari shrieked with glee. "And you _certainly _don't care for anyone but _yourself_."  
And with that, Hillari stepped forward, closing the distance between herself and Stargirl, and slapped her.  
The crowd screeched with delight. They high fived and hugged each other. They slapped Hillari on the back. Hillari stood with her head held high and a huge grin on her face. Her eyes were still staring right into Stargirl's with malicious intent. And all this time, throughout the entire scene, despite the voice in the back of my head, I just stood there and did nothing.  
I had never felt so ashamed in my entire life.  
Stargirl blinked. She began to walk, and then jog through the crowd until she reached the courts' exit. As soon as she hit the area surrounding the dance, she broke into a run. The crown inside cheered.  
She ran right by me. As she did, I saw a single tear run down her cheek. Even though the courts' lights were no longer beating down on her, that tear shone even brighter than the stars she had named herself for.  
"Stargirl!" I cried quickly. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. I never should have sided with my friends instead of her. I should never have left her side. I should never have tried to change her. I should never have done any of the things I did. I was sorry. I had to tell her. She had to know.  
But she didn't even stop running. She just turned her head back and, through her tears, yelled, "You just stood there. You always did."  
And that struck me the hardest. I stood there, dumbstruck, just as I always had. Just as I always would.

After the weekend of the ball came to a close, I searched for her at school. I didn't see her at her normal spot in the courtyard. Dori Dilson, her best friend, sat alone. She watched me wearily as I left.  
I should've passed Stargirl two times in the hallways before lunch. I never so much as saw a strand of her hair or one of the freckles on her cheek. The students looked happier than I'd seen them for months. I supposed it was still from the aftermath of Hillari's showdown with Stargirl. Some of them glanced at me and laughed, like I was suddenly something worth noticing rather than a figure of shunning as I had been in the last few months with her.  
I came to lunch. Stargirl wasn't in her usual seat. There was no sunflower lunchbox or ukulele. There was no Cinnamon the rat. Dori sat alone there as well, glumly looking down at her sandwich.  
I sat down next to my best friend Kevin. He avoided my gaze.  
"Where's Stargirl?" I asked him.  
"It's not like I would know," he said, taking a huge bite of his pizza.  
"Where is she?" I demanded, glaring at him. "Why isn't she at school?"  
He quickly swallowed his pizza. "You seriously didn't hear?"  
"Hear what?" I asked impatiently.  
Kevin shook his head. "She dropped out, man. She took a load of crap at the Octillo Ball and finally bent under the pressure. It's not a big deal anymore. Just forget her."  
I stared at him in shock. I continued to stare at him until he up looked at me nervously and asked if he should take me to the nurse because I looked like I was going to pass out. I quietly got up and walked out of the lunch room.

The bell rang at the end of the school day. I bolted out of the school, hopped on my bike, and rode to her house. There was a For Sale sign stuck in her yard like a tombstone. Sweating, I walked up and rang the doorbell. No one answered. I rang it again. I waited for ten minutes before accepting that no one was home. She couldn't be gone, I thought. There's no way she's gone. I refused to accept it. But where else would she be?  
And then I remembered. I hopped on my bike again.  
What would've taken an hour to get there on foot only took me twenty minutes on my bike. When I finally got to the place, I dismounted so quickly that I got my pant leg stuck on the pedal and ended up tripping off the stupid thing. When I finally unstuck myself, I looked around. Something was wrong.  
Stargirl's enchanted place no longer felt enchanted. The sun behind the Maricopa Mountains was like the lights of the tennis courts. It no longer shone down lovingly on you, but beat down, trying to smother you in the heat, trying to choke you. The normally serene mountains were now cold and uninviting in the deathly dark shadow of the sun. The rugged brush and tumbleweed and prickly pear cacti were just that: brush and tumbleweed and prickly pear cacti. They didn't seem like beacons in the endless desert or odd little trinkets that added interest to the scenery anymore; they were just ugly, thorny plants. The once majestic saguaro was only a bundle of sticks. The owl nest in it had been abandoned. A hawk swooped overhead, the same type that might have tried to eat Cinnamon some time ago.  
I scuffed my shoe against a pile of pebbles. I counted twenty of them. The same number Stargirl had used for her happy wagon, putting them in the wagon or taking them out as she pleased when she either felt happy or sad. I guessed that if these had belonged to her, they would all be out of the wagon now. She certainly didn't have a reason to feel happy.  
I looked around. The place was relatively barren. There was no place for her to hide, and I didn't see her. My hope fell. If she wasn't here, then I would never be able to find her. I would never see her again.  
"Stargirl!" I yelled into the open desert. There was a bit of an echo from the direction of the mountains, but otherwise no one replied.  
"STARGIRL!" I screamed louder.  
Nothing happened. She wasn't here.  
I don't know what compelled me to do what I did next. Maybe it was a guilty conscience. Maybe the place still had some enchantment left. Whatever the reason, I continued yelling.  
"I'm sorry!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "I was an idiot! I should have helped! I should have stood up for you! I should have done something!"  
My throat was dry from the desert air, but I kept yelling. "You left, and it was all my fault! It wasn't the people at school's fault, it wasn't Hillari's fault, it was all me! I could have done anything to keep you here! And I didn't! I didn't even try!"  
I realized I was crying, but I kept going. "Maybe it's better that you left! Now you don't have me around!"  
I got quieter. "Now, you don't have me around. Now you're free. You're a star. You don't need worldly things to keep you on the ground. You don't need me."  
I whispered the last words. "You shouldn't want me. You never should have."  
I sat on the desert floor. Just sitting there, I remembered all of the amazing things we had done together. I remembered when she had made a sign to confess her love for me and put it up for the whole school to see. I snapped off a branch from one of the mesquite bushes, and, using it as a pencil in the sand, wrote: LEO LOVES STARGIRL.  
A teardrop fell of the end of my nose and into my message. I covered my face in my hands. A slight breeze swung by and tapped one of the pebbles out of its pile.

That was during my junior year. The summer after my senior year, I had my eighteenth birthday party. I hadn't invited anyone since most of my friends had already left for college. I had a few presents from my parents, and Kevin had sent me a sweatshirt with his school's name on it, which was relatively useless since I wouldn't be able to wear it to my own college without getting pegged as a traitor. We were sitting at the kitchen table eating the first slices of my cake when the doorbell rang. My mom went to answer it and came back to the table, looking confused. She was examining a package with a bright gold bow on it.  
"This was on the steps," she said. "It's addressed to you, Leo. Were you expecting another package?"  
I shook my head and reached for the package as she handed it to me. I opened it cautiously. Inside, lying on white linen was a porcupine necktie. It was just as Stargirl had done for me on my fourteenth birthday. It had five porcupines lying on their stomachs and clasping their hands to form a star, and another was using his quill to write words in the sand. Underneath the tie was a photograph of me in Stargirl's enchanted place right after I had written my own message in the desert floor.  
There was also a card. It was blank except for a small section right inside it. It read:

I forgive you.  
Love, Stargirl

That happened fourteen years ago. To this day, I've lost the tie and misplaced the picture, but I still have the card. I carry it with me wherever I go. I never let it out of my sight. I guard it with my life. And why is that?  
I lost Stargirl once. I'm never losing her again.


End file.
